Monday, July 19, 2010

Muffin Tin Mondays and Kids Cook Mondays!

Muffin Tin Monday and Kids Cook Mondays

Recently I was asked to participate in Kids cook Mondays. It is a program to help get kids involved in cooking and therefore promote healthy eating habits.

I have also recently found a blog Muffin Tin Monday. This is a simple concept. Serve one meal in muffin tins, bento box, small container or whatever you have really. I think it is a good way to ward off the stresses of Monday and make it fun and entertaining for the children and maybe get them to try new foods. I personally had never served a MTM (muffin tin meal) but was excited when they did a swap recently. I was lucky enough to be paired with the creator/author of MTM and got some really grooovy things :)

We got some adorable little forks and spoons, bird and bunny cookie cutters, a heart shaped rice mold, some really awesome boiled egg molds (CANNOT WAIT TO USE THOSE-- such a neat idea) some paper food liners (like cupcake liners)some pretty picks with tags on them and a box to put everything in! (whew! I think that is everything, but I may have forgotten something lol)

Now, in my house, kids don't just cook on Mondays. They cook every day. A few months ago, we started a tradition in our house. The kids take turns on three different weekly duties: kitchen helper, set table, clear table.

The kitchen helper is responsible for sitting down with Mom at the beginning of the week and making a menu of all the meals that will be served during that week. Then, through-out the week, that child is responsible for helping to cook and serve those meals. The only rule is that they must have at least 1 fruit or vegetable and a protein at each meal. If I let them, on certain weeks we would have no meat whatsoever, and all fruits LOL

So today was our first ever MTM. Using all my new supplies (THanks MICHELLE :)) Garret and I worked together to make a wonderful meal. I hadn't really planned ahead on this one, so we had to make due with what I had on hand.

This is what we ended up with: Casaba melon (kind of like honeydew), cucumbers, and heart shaped bologna and cheese sammiches :) The melon and cucumbers are cut into bunny, bird (banana), bat, and snowman shapes lol even though they are hard to see in the pic.

Garret is very serious about cooking.

This is a Casaba Melon bird... Garret thought they looked more like bananas though.

the heart shaped rice mold actually worked pretty well for cutting out the sandwiches

Overall I think it was a huge success. My nine year old (read "9 going on 18) tried to act like he didn't like the melon, but seeing as how he ate a third of it 2 days before, I think he was just being dramatic.

My daughter likes making that face for pictures btw.

If you want to join in the fun at The Kids Cook Mondays check out their website here .

If you want to join in the fun at Muffin Tin Monday check out her blog here .

I must admit that this meal and post were not written on Monday, BUT I have good reason :) Monday is Garret's SEVENTH birthday! I cannot believe my baby is going to be 7! (well, he WILL be 7 by the time this posts) Anyway, I didn't want to put it off and we really couldnt wait until Monday to do our first meal when all these goodies were sitting there waiting to be used, could we? Eventually I hope to actually post these things on Monday, but well, lets face it, Mondays are crazy, and I'm only human LOL

Yes, I was really grateful to Michelle for all the neat things we got! This was our very first MTM and she really made it possible!

JDaniel4's Mom: I find that having the kids help out makes it impossible for me to NOT let them help (im one of those moms that is kind of afraid to let my kids help in the kitchen lol ). They are always asking when is it time to help make the next meal? :D

Lisa, I have never used the egg mold, but can't wait to try it out. Apparently you boil an egg, peel it, and then while it is still warm you put it into the mold and close it. I will post pictures when I use it... the kids are asking for boiled eggs for breakfast, so Maybe I will try it then :)